


Numb

by saekokato



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-31
Updated: 2006-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:07:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saekokato/pseuds/saekokato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John comes to a sudden understanding about his boys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Numb

Three weeks, six days, five hours, forty-five minutes and twenty-three seconds. That's how long it takes John to break down and go to Stanford. Three weeks with no knowledge of where his youngest is, what he's doing, if he's even still breathing. The longest period of time that had ever separated John and Sam in Sam's eighteen years.

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On day 25, John sent Dean on a supply run to Pastor Jim. John knew without a doubt that his eldest was hurting more than his father, and Jim was more of a father-figure to the boys than John had ever been. It killed him to admit it, but it was the truth.

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On day 25, John sent his eldest off the way he should have sent off his youngest - with modesty. There were no orders, no yells, no threats, and no ultimatums. Just a father sending off his son, long overdue; letting the boy become the man he already was.

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On day 26, John spent time cleaning out his truck and their current broken down apartment of all alcohol - every last drop. Sam's leaving had woken something in John that John had long thought dead; something that had died and been revived once before. Sam had always been his father's son and Dean Mary's, but that night, in that fight, John saw his first real glimpse of Mary since the night she'd burned.

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On day 27, John left that small town in west most Idaho before dawn cracked. He drove straight to Stanford. He found Sam on the student's quad, in a class discussing something John had never even heard of. Even across the distance, John could hear Sam leading the discussion. Sam was the spitting image of Mary.

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Three weeks, six days, fifteen hours, ten minutes and thirty-four seconds. That's how long it takes John to realize his sons don't need him, hadn't for a very long time. They'd grown all on their own.


End file.
